Moon Women: A Novel - Hardcover

Duncan, Pamela

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385335180 ISBN 13: 9780385335188

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 2001

Synopsis

With the grace of a natural storyteller, debut novelist Pamela Duncan crafts a mesmerizing tale of family and love, revelation and forgiveness. Beautifully wrought, deeply affecting, Moon Women is a resounding portrait of three generations of remarkable women, separated by a secret only one of them can tell.

In the lush North Carolina foothills, the Moon women have put down roots: matriarch Marvelle Moon, who’s starting to lose her grip on the world after more than eighty years of life; her middle-aged daughters, Ruth Ann and Cassandra; and Ruth Ann’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Ashley, fresh out of rehab, unmarried, and three months pregnant.

Despite Ruth Ann’s best efforts to live a life that’s all her own, her family is coming together around her. Marvelle and Ashley need a place to live and Ruth Ann is unable to turn either of them away; and her womanizing ex-husband has been coming around again, dredging up the past. Now a flurry of outbursts, emotions, and outrages is shattering Ruth Ann’s separate peace. And as this flawed family comes together, so, too, do the stories of the people Ruth Ann thought she knew best.

For here is Ashley, who has spent nineteen years running furiously away from home, now finding herself on a strange journey with her unraveling grandmother. And here is Cassandra, protected by layers of obesity and loneliness, wondering how to put magic back in her life. And Marvelle, slowly losing touch with reality, privately contemplating the story of her life and the secret that would change everything for everyone — if they only knew....

By turns fierce and tender, harrowing and heartbreaking, Moon Women resonates with emotional power, holding us captive under its beguiling spell. It is an astonishing debut from a powerfully original new voice in contemporary fiction.

About this title

From the Back Cover

“Moon Women contemplates what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister. Beyond even those themes, it's wonderful to read a writer who captures the setting and personality of North Carolina so honestly, passionately, and triumphantly.”
— Creative Loafing

“In the tradition of Fannie Flagg and Rebecca Wells comes a Southern-fried debut.... Duncan shows promise as a from-the-heart quirky storyteller.”
-- Publishers Weekly

“Impressive ... The Moon women, old and young, are great ones for musing, and Duncan deftly handles multiple points of view as they present their hardships and joys in richly textured reminiscences.... Leisurely pace and authentic southern voice: a pleasure to be savored, by a writer to watch.”
— Kirkus Reviews

“Reading Moon Women is like falling into a feather bed — you’ll want to snuggle in, settle down, and stay right there until you have turned the last wonderful page.”
— Lee Smith, author of Fair and Tender Ladies

“Irresistible. Once these Moon women start talking, you can’t stop turning the pages of this extraordinary, beautifully crafted novel.”
— Angela Davis-Gardner, author of Forms of Shelter and Felice

About the Author

Pamela Duncan was born in Asheville in 1961 and raised in Black Mountain, Swannanoa, and Shelby, North Carolina. She holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.A. in English/creative writing from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. She lives in Graham, North Carolina, where her good neighbors watch out for her, and is at work on a second novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0385335180
• ISBN 13: 9780385335188
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336